Robin Wright (playing herself) gets a harsh dressing down from her agent (Harvey Keitel) about all the bad choices she has made in her life. Her studio is offering her one more contract, but it is different from a normal movie contract, they want to scan her into the computer and use the digital persona to make movies without her input.

While she is hesitant at first, her agent manages to convince her and also helps her by telling a story during the scanning process. Cut to 20 years later and Robin arrives at the Futurist Congress which is in a “restricted animated zone” and a whole lot of stuff happens.

WOW! It’s hard to put into words how amazing this movie becomes once they cross over into animation. Even the live action sections, such as Harvey Keitel’s speech during the scanning process would be a stand out in any movie, but having the animated section takes it to another level.

It all seems to be hand-drawn animation also and is very creative. I liked the line “we apologise for the lack of symmetry in the rainbows” and all the things you see when the characters walk around with people who become whatever they desire.

There is also some satire relating to the current state of the movie industry with “the whole system changing” and sticking the boot into Australia for some reason. It also shows what happens when people alter their brain chemistry to get whatever they want, the entire world economy became redundant and people just shuffle around in the ruins dressed in rags living inside their own minds.

The clips from the fake movies where interesting with “Rad Rebel Robots” and the reworking on the riding the bomb scene from Dr Strangelove.

I had not heard of the story by Stanislaw Lem that the film was based on, but it looks interesting. The production was a multi-nation project due to the number of animators involved and you can see the work that has gone into it up on screen.

Not sure how well this movie will go in general release, but it should be a big hit amongst fans of animation and science fiction stories.

While I knew of Divine and have seen a couple of the movies she stars in, I did not know the whole story. I seem to remember John Waters speaking in another documentary about Divine being his star and he manages to say something different here.

Divine may not seem totally outrageous today, but you have to remember being a trail blazer means ending up on fire yourself. It was a very conservative environment and it was a crime to be gay in those days in the USA (John Waters says it was more fun that way though.)

There are a lot of talking heads in this documentary with some clips of the movies that made Divine famous, if you wanted to see more of them you can go watch the films themselves I suppose.

I did learn a lot about the actor and also did not even know Divine was lined up to have a role on Married With Children not in drag just before he died.

I was happy to see this at the festival, sitting in the same row as I did for “The Movie Orgy” a few years back with almost the same people in the same chairs. Hopefully the documentary gets a wider release on DVD and TV in the future.

Can’t really be objective on this one, I put in money for the Pozible campaign and my name is on screen on the credits at the end. I have to say I am happy with the result and it is one of the best music docos I have seen. They also recorded the three gigs at the Tote in late 2012 and those will hopefully be on the DVD release.

It also shows that you think you have something figured out like the Cosmic Psychos and then it turns out you hardly know anything at all about it. One of the biggest fans of the band and also their friend told me there was stuff in here that he did not know about.

I saw the Cosmic Psychos at the Big Day Out in 1997 in the cattle pavilion at the Melbourne showgrounds and had heard about them before that, but didn’t really take photos of them until 2005 around the time of their Off Ya Cruet release. I even made a music video for one of the songs off the album, which I put on VCD as Ross doesn’t have a computer

There is a lot of talking heads in the movie, but it is broken up by performance footage and photos. Also having the demonstration of the drinking game with the 50c coin is something you would not see in a lot of docos.

It was interesting to see how they dealt with the split with Bill Walsh in the band. The last time I saw them in the same building both the bands they were in were playing at the same time and Bill and Ross did not cross paths. They were honest about it and have admitted they have moved on with their lives.

We all still miss Robbie Rocket, I’m not going to go into it. 2006 was a shit year with Robbie, Billy Thorpe, Ian Rilen and Lobby Loyde passing on. There was the tribute gig at the Corner Hotel that was a good send off.

There was a Q&A after the screening, but the band themselves seemed a bit reserved. It was interesting to hear Matt Weston hearing how he came onto the idea of funding the documentary through crowd funding and that he was not really that into the band before he started the project. Cheers to Paul Elliot who had a go of the 50c game and won himself a free ticket to the Psychos gig at the Hifi Bar.

The Cosmic Psychos are doing a victory lap to promote the doco with a double live LP on “beer and piss coloured” vinyl. They will also be playing over in the US with a big festival date at the same time as the Grand Final, if the Tigers are in it Ross said Matt Weston can play the bass.

Colin (Romain Duris) lives a carefree life with his live-in lawyer Nicholas (Omar Sy) who cooks to amuse himself and sweeps off the table with a broom. When his friend Chick (Gad Elmaleh) comes over and says he has fallen for Alise (Aïssa Maïga), Colin says he wants to be in love too. Cue funny dance sequence with giant-bendy legs with Nicholas. Later at the party for the puppy he meets Chloé (Audrey Tautou) and they fall in love and eventually get married, but is not a “happily ever after” type story, but you will have to see how it turns out for yourself.

Once again I curse at my inability to describe something in words that really needs pictures and video to be shown fully. I would not want to spoil everything on display as that is the main joy of this film. Things like the live-in mouse who is a man in costume are never explained and also the giant room with all the people typing the dialogue for the movie on typewriters.

The “addicted to books” plot is very weird also, at one point Chick and Colin take a pill that lets them experience literature and Chick gets addicted and dissolves a book in solvent and then puts it into his eyes, leading to disaster.

You could compare this movie to Amélie, but that is selling it short as it has a lot more grit along with the creativity. I would have to say it was hipster pornography, there was polite laughter throughout the screening and I ended up giving one particular concept a single clap out loud before I could stop myself.

I enjoyed two of the supporting characters played by Omar Sy and Aïssa Maïga in particular, as Omar is cool and Aïssa is very beautiful, but in a different way to Andrey Tatou.

As I said I can’t really go into detail of all the concepts and just plain weird stuff in this movie without spoiling a lot of it, if you are a fan of the work of this director and also the actors I would recommend it.

First read-through of the 2013 Melbourne International Film Festival program.

Stoker
Good Vibrations
Mood Indigo
Closed Curtain
Lovelace
Shirley – Visions of Reality
The Broken Circle Breakdown
Final Cut – Ladies and Gentelmen
The Last Time I Saw Macao
Persons of Interest – Part 1 & 2
Fallout (documentary about On the Beach filming not the video game)
The Rocket
In Bob We Trust
Lygon St – Si Parla Italiano
Moon Man
Approved for Adpotion
Bekkas
I Declare War
Television
Behind the Camera
The Missing Picture
Twisted Trunk, Big Fat Body
Comrade Kim Goes Flying
Aim High in Creation!
Kong Kil Dong
Hertiage Fight
Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer
The End of Time
Narco Cultura
Dirty Wars
Exposed
Lunarcy!
The Moo Man
The Act of Killing
Pearblossom Hwy
Computer Chess
Starlet
Rewind This!
Big Name No Blanket
A Band Called Death
Cosmic Psychos: Blokes You Can Trust
Miss Nikki and the Tiger Girls
The Sunnyboy
The Congress
The Pyjama Girl Case
A Field in England
I Am Divine
Patrick (2013 remake)
John Dies at the End
The Trials of Muhammad Ali
Weekend of a Champion
Dragon Girls
WTF Shorts
Animation Shorts
Foxfire

I had heard rumours and seen some clips of Eastern European communist musicals before, but I never knew that someone had made a documentary about them until my research on tractors turned up this title.

Through as series of clips of the movies, interviews with the people involved in their production, audiences and recreations of party review committees, this documentary attempts to tell the story of a forgotten era of cinema from behind the Iron Curtain.

I have to say after watching this that some of these films look like the best movies ever. It is very frustrating to find out after my own further research that the amount of these movies that are actually available today can be counted on the fingers of one hand. (When I first watched this documentary back in 2005, a lot less of these movies were available.)

It is a bit sad that these films were never considered as ‘art’ when they were released, as it means that many of them were just forgotten after the fall of communism. The people involved had a hard enough time making them in the first place and they deserve recognition for their achievements.

I also liked the funny anecdotes from this movie, such as Stalin liking to laugh it up with funny movies and having a fantasy for ‘boys photographing tractors’. The views of the audience members interviewed were also great to hear as you don’t normally hear their opinions in this sort of documentary.

This documentary comes very highly recommended and I am planning on buying a copy on DVD (along with the movie ‘Hot Summer’) as soon as I am able to so I can watch it again for the great musical clips.

I finally got around to watching Legend of the Superheroes after buying a few of the Warner Archive Collection/MGM Classics/Sony Screen Classics DVDs last year. I know some of them are now available only, but I cannot watch them there due to region restrictions. Also I noticed a lot of these DVDs have “not for sale or rent outside of the US” on them. Has not stopped some local DVD stores selling them at double the price though.

Urgh! A Music War

Has a large line up of bands playing from a concert recorded in 1980. Fans of the bands should know that while the popular bands of the time do play, they don’t actually play their most popular song. I did like the large amount of bands involved and some of the more interesting bands like the Surf Punks

They reminded me of Melbourne band the Twits are fair bit for some reason.

Legends of the Superheroes

I had heard a lot about this from various sites pouring scorn on it in the past few years. As a fan of the Superfriends cartoon series I was interested in it and not just to make fun of it. I turned out to be a lot better than I thought from the short clips I have seen. Having Adam West, Burt Ward, Frank Gorshin, Ruth Buzzi and a lot of other talented actors and comedians in it helped a lot. Even though the show was never picked up from the two pilot episodes, it does look like the people involved were having a good time and laughing for real at some of the jokes during the filming.

Another one I had been meaning to see for quite a while after reading about it in Spike Milligan’s autobiography. It was originally a play and Spike also moved his parents out to Australia as he was so afraid of nuclear war. I was quite pleased with this one due to the cast and that it was very weird with no explanation as to why the strange things were happening other than “radiation”, it is also a lot more up in tone than most post-nuclear war movies.

Sid and Marty Krofft’s Greatest Saturday Morning Hits

After posting the following trailer to my friend’s wall, I got the message back “You are the ruler Tim! This is boss!”

I had to buy the show then, I did try and find the complete set via a VHS to DVD rip, but the seller turned out to be dodgy – what a surprise! so I settled for this one. There were other boxed sets, but they were either out of print or too expensive.

The rest of the episodes from each of the shows were interesting and even the widely derided “Bigfoot & Wild Boy” was not as bad as people make out. I would recommend this DVD for people who want a taster of some of the shows before they go looking for them online. I learned the lesson with the Banana Splits DVD boxed set as even the creators of the show got sick of it after a while, they had a buggy race that went for six episodes, should have gotten compilation DVD of the Danger Island episodes.

Americathon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFyVs_766S4

I had not heard of this one before I saw it on the Warner Archive Collection list on the oldies.com website, looked interesting at least. I ended up being a bit disappointed in it as it does have a good cast including George Carlin doing the narration, but they never seem to make enough of it including the jokes that fall a bit flat.

Luckily it still has an Beach Boys song they wrote for the movie.

And not forgetting Meatloaf vs. a car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFyVs_766S4&t=01m15s

Legend of Billie Jean

Q&A from the Cinefamily screening

I forgot where I first heard of this, but was intrigued by the trailer and the news it was having a rare public screening as it hadn’t really been seen since it was released in the 1980s. Also there were rights issues regarding the soundtrack that needed to be resolved.

This is the best DVD of the bunch as far as I am concerned. Sure it may be a bit over the top at times, it is very earnest and the soundtrack suits it perfectly. Also for fans of the Simpsons it is the chance to see an early role outside of Herman’s Head for the voice of Lisa Simpson, Yeardley Smith.

I have a lot of things I would like to buy, but do not have the money for at the time. In this situation I usually make a note of the item in the back of my yearly pocket diary and make a point of buying from that list first when I am going to buy something.

I have had items it takes several years before I buy them though as I get distracted, the reason I know this is that I keep all my yearly pocket diaries dating back to around 2000 with all the appointments and notes so I can see what I have done each year.

Nobuhiko Obayashi is a cool dude and I enjoyed his movie House very much. He also is an inspiration on continuing to do something even if people tell you it is “stupid” and you will make a fool of yourself, which is what happened while making House. His lighting crew also spent hours looking for the tiny screws out of his glasses as he treated them nicely.

I do like the Shaw Brothers re-releases by Celestial Pictures, even if a lot of them are only coming out on VCD/iTunes these days. The cases are always good to look at also (the western versions are toned down somewhat and do not have the cardboard slipcases.)

I like the original trailers more than the re-worked ones for the re-release. The older ones have more character and are not so slick as the newer ones, which also leave out a lot of the jokes from the original movies making them look more serious than they really are.

I really enjoyed reading “the Golden Age of DC Comics, 365 days” and this is the definitive guide to DC comics. It is also quite hefty and more of a “fireside study” edition. It is so large a book that the publisher is re-releasing sub-sets of the book as separate editions.

I participated in a chiptunes workshop with Dot.AY and Derris Kharlan at ACMI http://blog.acmi.net.au/index.php/2012/11/chiptune-heaven/ and I wanted to follow it up. Despite all the bands and music I go to see I do not play myself and wanted something to play around with, even if I am not going to play live.

I do still exchange messages with Goto80 on Twitter and I have emailed him a few times. He used to live in Melbourne for a while. Unfortunately I have missed the last two Blip Festivals in Melbourne for different reasons. This is a shame as there is not really a “scene” for that kind of music and that is pretty rare considering how many other different types of music are played around town.

Unfortunately the “Black vs. White Magic Battle” recommended by just the Youtube URL in print by Animal Collective has been taken down. I will try to resist the temptation of buying and watching all the Shaw Brothers movies at once.

Hooray for Cinefamily! (http://www.cinefamily.org/) I would not have found out about this movie otherwise. They also have some great re-cut trailers including this one for Possession with the Knife as the soundtrack

I forget how this came up, but I was watching Ernest Borgnine driving around talking about filming the fight on top of the train with Lee Marvin and thought it would be good to watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTHJpm8lt0Y

I always enjoy reading the stuff from their newsletter and often send the links out to friends on Facebook including local label managers and people who I think would have a specific interest in the subject.